Boston beats Los Angeles in fame index

According to “The Geography of Fame,” an opinion piece in The New York Times by Seth Stephens-Davidowitz, the best place to make your mark in the world isn’t Hollywood, but Suffolk County, Mass., where 1 out of every 748 Baby Boomers now has an entry in Wikipedia.

That Suffolk County is home to Boston and Harvard University, where Stephens-Davidowitz earned his Ph.D, may not be coincidental. One of the contributing factors to Wiki-fame is proximity to a college or university and Boston has more colleges and universities than L.A. has pot shops.

Granted, a few lines posted in a digital encyclopedia may not be everyone’s idea of having “arrived,” but if we accept the premise, Stephens-Davidowitz’s data tells us a lot about how we define achievement in modern America.

After crunching the numbers on 150,000 “notables,” including data on county of birth, date of birth, gender and occupations, Stephens-Davidowitz concludes the closer you live to cows the less likely you are to be stalked by the paparazzi and have photos of your thong-clad buttocks taken on a beach in St. Bart’s pop up on TMZ.com.

While Suffolk County might have the highest ratio of high achievers, Los Angeles County did make the top 10, with 1 in 901 of us landing on Wiki. To no one’s surprise the state of California is home to more famous people than the other 49, with 1 out of 1,209 of us making the grade.

Meanwhile, if you live in West Virginia, good luck!

Only 1 in 4,496 Mountain State residents passed muster with the editors at Wiki. Dr. Seuss clearly had West Virginia in mind when he created Whoville.

Not surprisingly the easiest career path to fame is in “arts and entertainment,” with 30 out of 100 earning their place in the spotlight by standing in a spotlight. What Stephens-Davidowitz doesn’t say is how many of these people are named Kardashian.

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Twenty-nine out of 100 are from the world of sports, which is just a sweaty version of show business. Combined, actors and athletes make up nearly 60 percent of those considered noteworthy.

With 800 channels and 25 million websites it’s actually harder today not to be famous.

What’s worth considering is how few people nowadays achieve fame from the sciences, academics and business.

Only 3 out of 100 made Wiki via achievement in the sciences or academics, a significant falloff from earlier generations that celebrated a high IQ rather than a low BMI index.

Only 2 out of 100 profiled on Wikipedia earned their place through the business world and only 9 out of 100 through politics.

Of course those numbers may be low since 1 out 100 did make their name as criminals and there could be some crossover in the age of Bernie Madoff and state Sen. Leland Yee.

A clear distinction between Boomers and the Greatest Generation is the dearth of famous soldiers.

Despite more than a decade of continuous war and sacrifice only 1 out of 100 “celebrities” on Wikipedia earned their fame thanks to their military service.

Our second president, John Adams, famously said, “I must study politics and war that my sons may have liberty to study mathematics and philosophy. My sons ought to study mathematics and philosophy, geography, natural history, naval architecture, navigation, commerce, and agriculture, in order to give their children a right to study painting, poetry, music, architecture, statuary, tapestry, and porcelain.”

Somewhere along the way we blew through music and tapestry and ended up with “The Real Housewives of New Jersey” — a fresh reminder there is a difference between fame and achievement.

Doug McIntyre’s column appears Sunday and Wednesday. He can be reached at: Doug@KABC.com.